The Waterfall
by Tie-dyed Trickster
Summary: Apparently Geta's tail isn't his only unusual quality. Or, the one where Bulma blows up a waterfall. Part 2 of the Geta!verse


_Takes place a week or two after Bulma and the Monkey Prince_

Bulma surfaced with a gasp and instinctively grabbed the side of the river bank, coughing.

"Sorry I dropped you, but it was that or let us both get hit by that huge chunk of rock and, gonna be honest, I don't think you could have survived that."

Bulma looked up into Geta's face. Correction, Geta's once again upside-down face, since he was hovering in front of-

Hovering?

Bulma was so shocked she let go of the bank.

A few minutes later, Geta deposited Bulma on the shore, then shook head until his hair was standing upright again, whipping his tail about to dry that off, too. Bulma watched as well as she could while sputtering up river water. After a moment, when she could breathe again, she pointed a shaking finger at the young man before her.

"Y-you- you- How were you- When I first came up-?"

Geta stared at her blankly for a moment, then comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Oh, that? That's easy – I can fly!" so saying, his feet drifted off the ground until his body was parallel to it. He folded his arms and rested his chin on them, legs bent at the knees and kicking back and forth lazily, looking for all the world like he was lying on his stomach on the ground, rather than in mid-air at eye level with Bulma. "See?"

"I- yes, yes you can." Bulma stared at him in shock for a moment before shaking her head and scowling. "What the hell?! You can _fly_? How is that even _possible_?!"

Geta frowned at her, the tip of his tail twitching. "Hey, it saved your life just now. Besides, if anyone should be angry here, it's me!"

"And exactly how do you figure that?!" the blue-haired woman demanded.

Geta sat up, his head staying level with hers, frown deepening. "Because of _that_!" he shot back, pointing at the slope of white water behind her, "You destroyed my waterfall!"

" _Oh_ , I did _not-_ "

He pointed at her accusingly. "You hit that rock with your hammer and chisel and the whole thing exploded!"

"That wasn't my fault!"

"The hell it wasn't!"

"Hey, how was _I_ supposed to know there was a vein of magnesium in there!? Or that it ran behind the waterfall?" Bulma snapped, arms folded, "I'm amazed the entire thing was still standing, to be honest – magnesium is highly volatile! It was going to explode anyway, it was just a question of when!"

"Really? Oh." Geta drooped a bit at this, looking wistfully over her shoulder. "I really liked that waterfall. I found out I could fly there."

"Which brings me back to my main concern - you can fly. You are flying right now. The hell? How is this _possible_?"

"It's because I'm magic," the flame-haired youth replied matter-of-factly.

Bulma gaped. "What, really?"

"Yup. I'm made of fairy dust."

The blue-haired young woman blinked, then her eyes narrowed. "You're messing with me again."

Geta beamed at her. "Yes!"

" _Why_?"

He shrugged, grinning. "It's what I do. The truth is, I'm not entirely sure why I can fly. I know _how_ – it's a ki technique, a very pretty advanced one, too, according to Master Moo-shun, and he knows about that kind of stuff, so I believe him. I just… don't know why I know how. I was climbing the waterfall one day, fell off, and just… stopped falling." He shrugged.

"Ki?" Bulma asked, latching onto the bit of the explanation that had jumped out at her, "You mean like the Kamehameha and stuff?" she'd seen ki techniques before, during her travels with Son Gohan when she was out looking for adventure, dragon balls, and a boyfriend, not necessarily in that order.

Geta tilted his head to the side. "Kame-whatsit?"

"You know, a ki blast – ka-me-ha-me-ha!" Bulma went through the gestures.

Geta tilted his head to the other side. "I can do a ki blast." Holding his right arm straight over his head, he casually sent a bolt of white energy spiraling up into the sky. "Don't know why you'd do all that chanting, tho- you're staring again."

The blue-haired young woman was indeed staring again. She hadn't seen many ki attacks in her life, but everyone who had been able to do them always made it seem like they were really difficult. And this guy had just sent one off like it was nothing. "…just how strong _are_ you?"

"Dunno," Geta shrugged, "I've never met anyone stronger than me, or even close, not that I can ever remember. I'd like to, though!"

"Why? All the guys I know are always trying to be the best, not look for people who are better than them!"

"Because it would be a good fight! I've never been able to go all-out against anyone," the young man grinned, "Right now if I wanna spar with everyone I have to keep my ki really low. To find someone I didn't have to do that with… it would be glorious!" he leaned back, arms behind his head, "And if I'm _really_ lucky, they'll know where I come from!"

Bulma blinked at that. "You mean you don't actually know?"

He stiffened a little at that, then chuckled ruefully. "Oops. Didn't mean to tell you that just yet… But, no, I don't." he gave her a slightly sad smile. "Why did you think I make up so many stories about it?"

"I… hadn't thought about it that way," Bulma shifted uncomfortably. "Sorry, I guess."

"Eh, it's okay," he waved a hand, "I'm used to it by now. It's been like this since I was little- well, littl **er** ," he amended with a laugh.

"How old are you, anyway?" Bulma gave him a speculative once-over.

"Near as we can figure without knowing when I was born? Between eighteen and twenty."

"That old?!" Bulma gaped, "I had you pegged around seventeen!"

He chuckled. "Everyone thinks I'm younger than I am – I have youthful features." He batted his eyes at her, "But I've lived here for about thirteen years now, and I was at least five when I showed up, so I'm eighteen at the youngest, maybe more – I was pretty articulate."

"Oh." They were silent for a moment. "So, 'Vegeta' isn't your real name, then?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it is – whoever left me out here labelled me." Reaching into one of the pockets that zipped, Geta pulled out a round disc on a chain and offered it to her. "I was wearing this when I woke up, among other things."

Bulma looked at the disc curiously. One side had a slightly melted look and an odd sigil carved into it – something like a combination of a stylized crown and anchor. The other side had a set of odd, blocky glyphs on it. She handed the necklace back, shrugging. "Just looks like a bunch of squiggles to me."

"No, it says 'Vegeta,'" Geta responded firmly. "See, here," finally landing, he traced the symbols into the dirt of the riverbank. "See, 'Vegeta.' If I erase these symbols," he did, "Now it says 'Geta.' And if I write these-" he added a new row of symbols below his name, "-that's your name, 'Bulma.'"

"Huh." She looked over the symbols for her name curiously, fixing them in her mind. "Any idea what language that is?"

"Standard. Standard what, I don't know, but it's Standard." He slipped the necklace back in its pocket and zipped it shut again. "I woke up able to read and write it. Actually, it was almost a year before anyone realised I couldn't read Chikyuugo. I can now, obviously."

"Neat." Bulma looked at the rows of symbols again. "Was it very hard?"

He shook his head. "Nah, they're pretty similar in a lot of ways. Here, I'll show you. See this symbol? That's the 'ah' sound in both our names – the tic mark indicates that I'm male, the dash means you're female, no mark would mean gender-neutral. If I was writing it for just a word instead of a name, though, it would look like this-"

And so the meteor hunt was put on temporary hold as Geta and Bulma spent the next while respectively teaching and learning Universal Standard at the base of a shattered waterfall, though neither of them learned that that was what its proper name was until much later.

 **OoOoOoOoO**

 _Magnesium – pure magnesium – doesn't actually occur in nature, it's too volatile. However, this is DBZ, so just go with it. And there's two questions down – why he tells stories about where he comes from, and why he knows his real name even though he doesn't know where he comes from._

 _It's never really made clear where exactly on Earth any given part of DBZ takes place. Part of it is probably in Japan, some of it might be in America or Europe, and Roshi's island is definitely tropical, but generally the series is pretty culturally odorless. Are they speaking Japanese? English? Inuktitut? I dunno, but everyone seems to speak the same language (personally, I'm rooting for something like Inuktitut, because that would be cool). Well, except the Namekians, because they get to be special. And, to be honest, it's one of the things I kinda love about the series – how it exists in its own little bubble of time and space, with the only real pop references being to Toriyama's_ _Dr. Slump_ _manga. So, seeing as the world is united under a single government in DBZ, I've decided to unify it under a single written language as well. The other old systems are still out there, some are still in pretty common use even (kanji are still pretty well-known, for example), but 'Chikyuugo' is the main one everyone uses and learns._

 _This fic denotes one of the key things that differentiates Geta from canon!Vegeta, beyond the amnesia. Vegeta is always working his hardest to be the best, a goal he never really achieves. Geta, in contrast, has been the strongest thing on Earth since the day he arrived. Canonically, he had a power level of about 2000 at age five, and prior to the saiyan invasion, no one on Earth had a power level over 500 or so. And, I will say this much, Geta was at least five when he showed up. He has, quite literally, been stronger than god (or at least Kami) since he arrived on Earth._

' _Vegeta' seeks triumph. 'Geta' seeks an opponent who can meet him on equal footing. And maybe tell him where he came from…_


End file.
